ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses social workers to work in public child welfare has been an historic undertaking in the field of social work and in public child welfare agencies. It addresses the critical question of “training transfer” and shows how a School of Social Work’s research laboratory, in partnership with the child welfare agency, has addressed the endemic community conflicts inherent in service delivery in child welfare. The book describes how the use of cultural competence training became a tool to bring to the forefront the role of poverty as a core root cause issue for the disproportionate numbers of African American children in the public child welfare system. It explores the complex training and educational challenges grow in the expanding managed care and privatized environments.
